Abstract

The author (Cho, 1982b) formulated the differential model of impression formation as a function of the impression-dimension. In this model, it was presumed that intellectual traits rnay be more salient information for judgment of the favorableness (good-bad) impression-dimension, on the other hand, affective traits may be more salient information for judgment of the likableness (like-dislike) impression-dimension. Recently, researchers of the area of person memory found that recall for confirming events were more superior to that for non-confirming events. They concluded from these results that impression of the other person may be organized according to the schema of the perceiver at that situation (schematic impression formation). Viewing from this ;point, it can be easily expected that in case of the favorableness impression judgment, recall for intellectual traits will be more superior to that for affective traits, on the other hand, in the likableness impression judgment, recall for affective traits will be more superior to that for intellectual traits. This study was designed to test this hypothesis. Twenty traits (10 intellectual traits and 10 affective traits) were selected to construct one stimulus person. These traits were presented to subjects one by one per 2 seconds for each trait. Prior to presention of the traits, the subjects were given one of 3 types of the written instruction, which directed to form the good-bad impression (favorableness-dimension group), or the like-dislike impression (likableness-dimension group), or to think of a person entered his (or her) mind (control group). Each group consisted of 15 college students. After being presented with 20 traits, subjects judged the impression of that stimulus person according to their instructed dimension, and then worked the distracting tasks for 5 minutes. Next to this procedure, they instructed to recall as many as possible the traits they had seen. The results of this study were consistent with the above hypothesis. From this results, it was concluded that intellectual traits are cue information for the favorableness impression, on the other hand, affective traits are cue information for the likableness impression.